


Titan

by coeurastronaute



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, I'm Sorry, Sequel to Giant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2019-05-15 07:45:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14786366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coeurastronaute/pseuds/coeurastronaute
Summary: Kara and Lena have survived Lionel Luthor and their life together is just stating to look normal. But family is hard, and love is even harder.





	1. Chapter 1

It took planning. It took years and years of planning. It took planning before planning, but that was just the type of person Lex Luthor was. He didn’t do anything haphazardly or without any kind of premeditation. Everything was accounted for, in his mind, and everything was documented and categorized at an alarming speed, one that would make the average human astounded and a self-aware computer jealous.

In the crowded courtroom, voices all murmured and drifted here and there, creating this rumble that was pure white noise. The team of lawyers for the State whispered to themselves, the occasional one glancing over at the solitary man at the defense’s desk.

“We were unable to reach any family or friends for character witness, but your psychiatrist and rehabilitation specialist are here,” the leader of the panel finally cleared their throat and began while another shuffled through some papers.

“My sister?”

“Lena Luthor could not be located in a reasonable amount of time, and when she was, provided valid documentation of her departure from the area and inability to obtain reasonable transportation here.”

“She’s not in National City?” Lex asked, puzzled.

“We will now begin the parole hearing for Lex Luthor as required by the state and his sentencing. Mr. Luthor, as you are acting as your own counsel and representation, we will allow you to begin when you are ready.”

Though the news took him by surprise, he composed himself quickly, suave and charming all at once. He came to life as a reformed man in light of the death of his father. He saw the signs and he changed his wicked ways. That was what he told the counsel, and that was what he brought to the table when reporters came to interview him. By all accounts he was reformed and rehabilitated.

With a wicked grin that melted the rest of the audience, Lex finally began his fight for freedom and to redeem what he had lost.

* * *

A soft rain fell on the balcony. It was just the start of a storm rolling in from the water, and though it was not late in the evening, the heavy clouds turned street lights on a little earlier than normal, while inside, safe from the weather that was brewing, two bodies sat at the table for dinner.

The penthouse apartment was much smaller than the last, though that was not necessarily a bad thing, nor did it subtract from the home’s charm and splendor. It sat in a small, but close-knit community in a boro a dozen blocks from the city center. It was its own microcosm, and it was a slice of reality outside of the chaos of the city that surrounded it.

The rooms were almost sparse, as decorating came slowly, filling needs as they arose. The large windows were open, welcoming in the breeze and the smell of rain and the bakery a few buildings down, while the trees with the pale white and pink blossoms gently bounced and bopped to the noises of the city.

The hammock hung on the covered part of the patio, swaying in the wind, while a stack of books and cold mug of half-drank coffee acted as a paper weight to the papers shoved inside. It was a favorite spot of a former reporter turned travel writer slash poet slash teacher slash catch all, to spend hours reading and relaxing and finally adjusting back to life, a life she never knew she could have.

Meanwhile, a certain chair was well-worn and housed a black notebook full of sketches and ideas with a laptop beside it, all left alone on the patio in favor of food and the music that played quietly from someone’s phone on the kitchen counter.

When we last left our intrepid lovers, they were very much exhausted and fleeing, though perhaps fleeing isn’t a fair verb in this situation, because it seems almost impossible to flee toward something. But nevertheless, they were certainly choosing to finally have a duty unto themselves. They were running toward an idea, and a stupid, stupid, impossible dream for two people of considerable power, perhaps the last great delusion, that they could be anything but .

Nothing has changed at all.

Not really, of course. While the location has shifted for the moment, and time has naturally passed, as it is known to do despite all of the best intentions, Lena still likes to drink her coffee black, while Kara sticks to orange juice. One hogs the covers while the other kicks in her sleep. Sometimes, Kara purposely annoys Lena, and sometimes she pushes far enough for a fight. Still, she makes it up to her with that smile and those eyes that the former CEO couldn’t stay angry at, even if she really tried. Lena still tried to force healthy foods on her girlfriend, who had gotten better at pretending, though not by much.

And while they both remained similar to themselves and locked in the false security that they put their ghosts to rest, they seemed to have forgotten that ghosts are not good sleepers.

Wrapped up in the storm and the height of the penthouse and the feeling of finally escaping, no one in the house took notice of the world outside. Save, of course, possibly, for the cat, who hopped up on his favorite window ledge and gazed unto the rain and chirped slightly to himself, all that he could really muster for a warning.

* * *

There were still things that Lena learned about Kara that she loved. There were things she forgot and came back to and enjoyed. There was mostly just having her best friend near her that drove her wild, still. She turned into a seventeen year old again, even a decade later.

“Your phone is ringing,” Kara whispered, pushing herself deeper into the mattress.

Nothing deterred Lena’s hands from digging into her girlfriend’s tired muscles. Outside, the rain came down in a steady shower. The window was open and the world dripped away with the noise of the raindrops on leaves and against the window ledge, forming a puddle there, not minded by the ones in the bed.

The sheets fell almost away, settling near their hips as Lena straddled the hero’s waist. She ran her nails down her back after rubbing, alternating between the feeling of both. She was still in love with her back. She was still in love with the muscles there, and loved to adore them and make Kara purr. Lena learned that Kara loved the feeling of being massaged one night when she found herself doing it. It’d never been a thing she thought about because rarely did she have any effect on Kara’s skin. But once she found out she could make her melt like butter, Lena was eager to please.

“Do you want me to go and answer it?” Lena murmured, leaning over so she was pressed against Kara’s back, where she kissed while her hips pushed and sought some kind of friction.

Slow, deliberate girations earned a moan from the girl beneath her and a small whimper from herself, though Lena would deny it.

“Not particularly.”

It was already early afternoon and they hadn’t left bed. The remnants of a lunch of some fruit and crackers and leftovers remained scattered beside the bed. Lena started reading a book, fully planning on enjoying a rainy Sunday. Of course, Kara, the always active and often bored girl she loved, decided to spend the day giving Lena slow, lazy orgasms. Which was not a terrible way to spend a Sunday. The book was tossed to the ground at some point, pushed as they rolled around and Lena dug her hands into Kara’s hair, tugging right at the roots.

“I love you.”

“I know,” Kara smiled, earning a kiss on her cheek and a nibble on her ear. The hips didn’t stop moving against her though, slow and deliberate and driving her absolutely insane.

“Good. I’m always afraid you’ll forg–”

Before the words could come out of her mouth, Lena felt Kara turnover below her, though she remained straddling her hips. Now she had a lot more skin to touch and play with. Instantly, her hands moved to Kara’s chest.

“This is much better,” Kara nodded to herself as she held her girlfriend’s hips still before sliding her hands up her ribs and back down to palm her ass. “My CEO’s favorite position.”

“A Luthor always comes on top.”

“Comes out on top,” she corrected.

“Well, close enough.”

Lena leaned down, kissing Kara’s smile. Her hands cupped her cheeks and her neck and her chin and her ears. She felt her mattress shift and mid-kiss she gasped as fingers slid inside her. The moan reverberated in the rain, deep down in Kara’s chest as well. Hands gripped at her chest and she watched Lena sit up straighter and start moving her hips. Kara swallowed as she watched her girlfriend close her eyes and tilt her head back with the feeling of it all.

They were in no rush. The rain wasn’t in a hurry to leave. The cat was asleep in the living room. The phone was vibrating so that its noise was a staccato bassline to the noise of the bed and the world. There was no rush and Kara drew out every hitch and plea and savored them.

Even when it was over, it wasn’t over. Kara took her time, She had nowhere else to go and nothing more important could exist in the universe than bringing Lena back down to earth as gently as a feather falling through the air. She waited until Lena was huddled atop her and the jolting died down to remove her fingers.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” she asked as Lena dug her head into her chest, collapsed over and exhausted again. Another mumble came. “Because I needed my hand back.”

“I was going to give you a massage and seduce you.”

“Consider me seduced.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Kara smiled and wrapped up the girl in her arms. “Remember when we were kids and we sat on the beach and dreamt of this?”

“Dirty sex wasn’t really what I was dreaming of,” Lena snorted. “Well, not entirely. I certainly don’t think I had the imagination for some of the things we’ve done today.”

“Not that,” Kara rolled her eyes as she adjusted when Lena stretched out and relaxed, massaging her shoulder, playing with a tiny scar there. “I just forgot what it was like to be me. I let something take over my life and define me. I thought about that day on the beach a lot, when I felt myself getting overwhelmed.”

“Me too.”

“I think my parents would be happy with how I turned out.”

“Good, kind, honest, loyal, fierce, passionate, intelligent, selfless, adoring, great in the sack,” Lena listed, kissing her girlfriend’s chest and skating her fingertip around her nipple. “I hope our kids are just like you. Any parent would be proud.”

“Our kids, huh?”

“If you ever make an honest woman of me, yeah,” Lena yawned.

“We got this, do you think we’ll get the house with the open windows and you make me dinner?”

“The only thing I know how to cook is lasagna.”

“And it’s amazing. You should make that tonight.”

“If we ever get out of bed,” she nodded, shifting slightly.

Kara couldn’t help it. She closed her eyes and let fingertips trace her face. They moved along her jaw and her cheeks, worshiped her nose and smoothed her eyebrows. With a smile on her face, she let Lena search her every way she knew how.

“Do you ever miss it?” Lena murmured, kissing Kara’s neck.

“I don’t miss anything at the moment.”

“I’m being serious. Do you miss being Supergirl? Do you miss National City?”

To her credit, Kara thought about it. It was a question she’d been too afraid to ask herself, and probably too afraid to answer, though she knew she had to for Lena.

“Sometimes. Sometimes I feel like I’m wasting some potential, but the truth is, after everything… I think my legacy will be what we do together, the people we are, not stopping a bank robber or tossing an alien into the sky.”

“I didn’t mean to take it from you.”

“You didn’t,” she promised. “I was more than ready. It took a long time to figure out that not being Supergirl didn’t mean that I was Kara Zor-El. The two were always connected in my head, but that was never the truth.”

“And home?”

“This is home.”

“Kara,” Lena sighed and shook her head.

“Sometimes I miss Alex, and definitely Mr. Ong’s potstickers. But no. I kind of like us here. What about you?”

With a slight shift, Kara was on her side, tucking herself close to her girlfriend. They were pressed close and she slid her leg around Lena’s hip.

“I didn’t think I’d miss anything, but sometimes I do.”

“Like what?”

The question came with fingertips tucking messy hair behind her ear, with fingertips moving along her eyebrow and down the bridge of her nose, earning a smile and a wiggle.

“I miss the bench we’d have lunch dates on. I miss Jess. I miss soccer with some of the girls. I miss the feeling of August at the Waterside pier where we got those ice creams. I miss our place. The one you filled with Christmas lights. Sometimes I even miss LCorp.”

“You still own it.”

“Yeah, but you know what I mean.”

“Do you want to go back?”

“No, no,” Lena shook her head, finally opening her eyes, the color still distracting Kara from words. “This is home. I was just curious if you did.”

“Not at the moment.”

“Good,” she smirked, pushing forward and nipping at Kara’s lips. “Because I have plans for you.”

Even when she was distracted, Kara could hear the vibration in the kitchen. It made her sigh and crave being normal.

“Your phone is ringing.”

“Should I go answer it?” Lena taunted, sucking on neck.

“Don’t you dare.”

* * *

“Alex, I’m ready to do it,” Kara decided, blurting it out as soon as her sister answered the phone.

With purpose, the former hero walked down the familiar block of their neighborhood. She juggled a bag on her arm as she paused and perused some flowers from the corner bodega. Her face was all business though, which was so very different from the normal demeanor that the neighbors were accustomed to seeing.

When they first moved into the neighborhood, they were the talk of the town. Everyone knew who Lena Luthor was, and everyone, therefore, knew about her girlfriend. They, too, had a memorial for a dead Supergirl. They, too, followed the news of the clean up of National City because of a deranged, madman.

But the couple came in quietly, and stayed there. The first few months were met with stares, but then, they were just there. In a large city, neighborhoods are nothing more than microcosms– self-contained worlds within a larger organism. And theirs was no different.

It didn’t hurt that Lena started a small little robotics and coding lab, hiring locals. Or that Kara spent her time volunteering and winning over everyone she met with a huge smile and heart that knew no bounds. Just as with National City, they existed to themselves and they were adored soon enough by the rest.

What no one seemed to put together with the arrival of the pair, however, was the infrequent sightings of an angel in all black. The angel who stopped the mugging of the old lady who went to church every night. The angel who stopped a bus from hitting a little girl by ripping its bumper clean off. The angel who stopped the robbery of the bank six blocks over. The angel who broke a would-be rapists legs (and it was rumored some other anatomy).

It was a myth, though it was whispered about from time to time.

But Kara had a persistent look as she smelled the flowers, and though that made her relax somewhat, she was still much more serious than the owner remembered seeing.

“Good morning, sister. How are you? I’m fine. Thanks for asking,” Alex had their conversation for her, though Kara didn’t notice the snark. “Great. Hey. I haven’t talked to you in awhile, just wanted to catch up. Tell you I missed you. You know, just normal stuff.”

“You already know I miss you.”

“Still.”

“This is serious though, Alex,” Kara decided, squaring herself slightly. “I’m going to propose.”

The line was quiet for a long beat. Even without super hearing, Kara could have heard the gulp her sister took as she sputtered slightly on her coffee. Kara could picture her sister at her desk, sipping and quickly being surprised. It made her smile and ache.

“It’s about damn time.”

“Yeah?” she relaxed, for some reason needing to know that they were a good couple.

“I never thought there’d be a day when I said this, but yes, Kara. You need to marry that girl. She loves you and you’re perfect together. It’s kind of gross actually.”

Just like that, she relaxed and was smiling. For some reason, telling Alex felt daunting. This reaction was exactly what she needed. With a sigh and a happy greeting, she paid for her flowers and the rest of her stuff for dinner before heading out into the street.

They talked planning as Kara made her way through the crowded streets towrd the building that was now home. Kara smiled and winked at the doorman, nodding her greeting as she moved toward the elevator.

“But I don’t think I can get her to go there,” Kara lamented as they planned. She dug in her pocket for the keys. “I have to do it there, but I– Lena, hi, honey you’re home? Yeah. Okay. Hi.”

Nearly jumping out of her skin, Kara dropped her keys as she tugged them from the lock. From her spot at the table, Lena looked up from her laptop and cocked her head, always amused by the reactions she could get from an alien.

“I got done early, and it’s the weekend, so no one was focused. Figured I’d close up shop early. Hi, Alex,” she called toward the phone in her girlfriend’s hand.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Kara hurried. “Tell Maggie hello and to keep you out of trouble. Love you. Bye.” The phone was shoved in her pocket and Kara tried not to blush. “Hi. I got dinner supplies. And these. For you.”

“They’re beautiful, love.”

Kara liked making Lena blush. She liked making her smile. She liked that something so simple as cheap flowers from the shop down the block was like giving her a huge diamond necklace. Still slightly frazzled, she was relieved when Lena tugged her shirt and kissed her, humming to herself as she was known to do when given the chance.

“How’s your sister?”

“Not bad. Busy I guess. New alien legislation is coming. And Maggie and her are fighting, I think,” Kara shrugged as she began to unpack her bag of groceries. “She was curious if we’d make a visit anytime soon.”

“I don’t think National City needs any Luthors anytime soon. But you can go up. You know this.”

Kara frowned to herself but kept helping with the groceries. It was a losing battle, and she knew it, she waited.

“I love you,” Lena mumbled and kissed Kara’s shoulder through her shirt. “I just don’t know if I can ever go back there.”

“I know,” Kara nodded and relaxed, pent up frustration suddenly heavy like lead in her muscles and all at once released.

From his perch, Albert watched them in the kitchen, not moving at all from his spot on the ledge by the window. Instead, he yawned and Lena squeezed her girlfriend. Their apartment was finally becoming their home after nearly a year, and sometimes it was enough for Lena to forget. She was always someone who could compartmentalize, locking away National City in a little box and keeping it stowed under the bed, behind old sweaters and discarded socks.

Kara wasn’t someone to manage such things. Instead, she opted for living everything, and working through her problems. Both were effective methods.

“I was going to surprise you with dinner,” Kara smiled, remembering everything. “But you’ve ruined it.”

“That’s what I’m best at,” Lena chuckled. “Still want to make food?”

“I guess someone has to feed you.”

“You’re too good to me.”

“It’s easy. You’re my favorite person,” she shrugged, twisting in the arms that clung.

“And you’re charming.”

“That’s on accident.”

“And delectable,” Lena hummed, pushing her body against Supergirl’s, kissing her neck and earning a small hum that spurred her forward. “And tasty. And beautiful. And so damn sexy.”

Each word was accented with a kiss, each one slower than the last. Weak in the knees, Kara gripped the counter and shifted her hips, looking for an impossible kind of friction.

“You’re really good at this.”

“At what?”

“Seducing me, Ms. Luthor,” Kara gulped, earning another chuckle as hands slid up her chest and into her hair while a body slithered against her own. Eyes rolled back, the former hero tried to swallow but failed.

“You are awfully good at being seduced, Ms. Danvers.”

With a mischievous smirk, Lena kissed her girlfriend, and dinner was forgotten until much, much later.

* * *

When she was just seventeen years old, Lena Luthor won the state championship in soccer. Her best friend hugged her so tightly she thought she was going to pop, but still, all sweaty and exhausted from a good bit of playing and her goal and assist, Lena let herself be squeezed. Her father and mother were there, cheering eagerly and buying the team a much too expensive dinner to celebrate.

That was the kind of memory that Lena kept when she thought about her parents. Those were thing little bits of her past that she remembered most on certain days, and she absolutely hated it. As much as she was able to file things away, to let facts subvert the stupid feelings of grief and loss, sometimes, she inevitably failed.

Despite the growing pile of work she now had to do because she wanted to be part of the actual research and not just a check-signing entity, Lena couldn’t focus on the charts that covered her desktop. Instead, she clicked her ben and sunk a bit deeper into her chair while the rest of the company functioned well enough in the labs.

On her nearly empty desk, a picture of herself and Kara on the beach stared back at her. It was a throw away moment, those kind of seconds that never matter, but that life is inevitably composed of entirely. It was every moment to her, and she smiled despite herself.

Hidden beneath the charts and graphs from the last round of tests was a news article forwarded to her by her dear friend and former secretary. The article told of the parole hearing of a brother of her’s, and how they were actually deliberating.

Lena felt her fist clench around the pen only after her knuckles were white and she let out a heavy sigh, though didn’t move to sit up or adjust. It was her father’s birthday and she didn’t know how to exist with that knowledge.

The moments came back to her, sometimes, despite herself. She pulled the trigger, and she killed a man– a bad, bad, terrible monster of a man, but a man nonetheless.

“You look very deep in thought,” a soft voice greeted her from the doorway.

Leaning against the wall and six feet of perfect, beautiful, calm, Kara crossed her arms after adjusting her glasses, tilting her head to the side to appraise the woman behind the monitor. And just like that, Lena was happy. It was the most peculiar thing, to feel flipped and better in an instant.

“I was just thinking about you,” the former CEO sighed and smiled.

“Well I hope that’s not true, because you look absolutely miserable.”

“I was just thinking that we should get out of here tonight. Fire up the jet and head to the mountains. We bought that cabin, but don’t use it enough.”

“You bought a cabin.”

“I am we,” Lena smiled, teasing and finally dropping her pen. “What do you say? A little escape for a few days.”

“Is this about–”

“Yes.”

Guilty and knowing it, Lena looked through her lashes at her girlfriend and flexed her jaw, a clear sign that she couldn’t admit any more than that. Her foot tapped against her calf nervously as she watched Kara think about it.

“I was just going to ask you for coffee, but the cabin sounds perfect,” she smiled.

“Thank you.”

“Anything for you, love.”


	2. Chapter 2

The rain absolutely stained the buildings. It dripped down every column and grimy streetlight and lamp post, collecting in oil-splotched puddles and greasy rivers in the gutters. Every inch of the city was soaking wet, and the heavy, thick clouds didn’t show any signs of stopping. Just barely in the afternoon, and the world never got brighter, but remained rather dreary and dark, devoid of sunlight at all, soping up the sidewalks. The dreary world circled around, wind whipping it into darts and mean little stings at everyone’s faces who were brave enough to venture out in the storm.

On the outskirts of the city, everything was in a similar manner. The prison looked even more disheartening than normal, its bleak facade a stone face wit dismal bars and depressing mortar. A single car waited amidst the potholes and the puddles of the driveway while the guard towers looked on with more interest than usual.

Through the labyrinth of fences and walls and barbed wire, from the single iron front door, a lone figure finally emerged, and the driver of the car scurried outside to offer an umbrella.

“Good evening Mr. Luthor,” the man in the suit greeted the most recent release.

“It’s good to see you, Martin,” he smiled, quickly accepting the cover as they moved down the stairs toward the car. “I trust that you’ve kept everything in order while I’ve been away.”

“I’ve certainly done my best, sir.”

“Good.”

“Shall I take you home, Mr. Luthor?”

The door was opened and the benefactor slid inside, a small smile at the minute form of luxury finally available to him. Though it was true that his time in the white-collar prison for money matters wasn’t the hardest out there, he still wasn’t given the better things in life as he’d come to appreciate.

“I think I’d like to go shopping and I’ve wanted nothing to eat more than the thickest steak at Victor’s.”

“Wouldn’t you prefer your own place first? It’s been almost three years.”

“That’s the past. I’m more concerned with the future.”

The butler closed the door and made his way back around to the driver’s seat and slid inside, careful to adjust the temperature. He’d been with the family since he was so young, he remembered the wedding of Lex’s parents. He’d been there for the birth, he’d been there for the adoption, he’d been there for the holidays and the games and the graduations, and in his heart, the older gentleman loved them.

He wasn’t sure how to help, and he wasn’t sure what to do for Lex, just that he was, beyond all doubt, devoted. There might not even be a limit as to what he would do for the family, and he realized it right there, second only to the moment of hatred and guilt he felt when they lost the patriarch.

“Have you heard from my sister?” the passenger asked, almost nonchalant as they moved down the driveway.

“No sir. The last time I saw her, she was trying to sell the house in Midvale, though I don’t think she had the luck to do it yet.”

“Our home?”

“I believe she’s moved.”

“Yes, my letters went returned, unopened,” Lex furrowed. “And the company? She’s started her own.”

“A subsidiary, yes.”

“Who is running my company then?”

“The CFO, sir.”

“It’s madness,” he fumed, shaking his head and running his thumb over his knee. “But the Supers are almost completely gone for good.”

“They are.”

“It’s a new life for us, Martin. As my father said, it’s a new dawn, and it’s time for family.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

The DEO Headquarters was a large, nondescript building that shouted that it was a government facility. From the limited windows to the lack of foot traffic, it was nothing short of cold and overbearing.

Nothing really changed there. It was like walking into a book and knowing exactly where you dropped off. It was quiet in the lobby, but Kara navigated her way with a smile and a flash of an old ID badge to the man at the desk. She still pressed the same button in the elevator after entering a code that was somehow ingrained into her brain.

But it was almost home.

It was so familiar, that Kara just allowed herself to walk through the halls to no one’s real notice. She drifted around, in and out, until she approached the bullpen in the main area, the control center with the monitors scanning for problems and threats.

Just like always, her sister stands, hands on her hips, surveying information as J’onn crosses his arms over his broad chest and furrows while looking over the map. From her spot at the entrance to it all, Kara watches as the two plan something, debating over their points, and she smiles at how it remains the same.

It wasn’t lost on her how much she missed her sister. She missed her like an ache. She missed her like she’d miss breathing or flying. But she had to go, and they understood it. Kara could have flown back and forth much more often, but that would mean she was still trapped, and she wanted to make a proper go of things with Lena, and that meant shedding all temptation to be Supergirl. Alex knew it, and to a degree, she thought, must have been relieved by it. The close calls were coming to often to be ignored.

Halfway through remembering how much she missed her sister, Kara met Alex’s eyes, which looked away and then back again, somewhat confused by the woman standing there in her civilian clothes.

“Kara?”

“Hey. I was in the neighborhood and I thoug–”

Alex launched herself at her sister, hugging her tightly before she could explain herself, making Kara smile and chuckle to herself. She absorbed the moment though, hugging Alex back as tightly as she could without hurting her.

“I missed you so much,” Alex whispered to her sister’s shoulder.

“Me too.”

They clung to each other as they had for as long as they could remember. It was a moment of zen and it was much needed after so much time apart. 

“Kara, you look well,” J’onn greeted her next, hurrying to hug her as well. “Not many people look so good after dying.”

“Nothing has agreed with me more.”

“You couldn’t have called and let me know you were coming?” Alex shoved her arm. “I would have had James here, and Winn, and told Maggie to stop by. She’s going to be so mad if you don’t say hello.”

“No one knows I’m here. Spur of the moment,” Kara shook her head and looked around at everyone working and not noticing that they were talking. “Can we–”

“My office,” the Director offered, extending his hand in the direction of the stairs.

Mad as she was, Alex was infinitely more happy to see her sister. Instantly, they all knew why she was there, though all she could wonder was if Lena knew. Something about Kara’s eyes and the emphasis she put on the words made Alex lean toward no.

“You’re here because of Lex Luthor, aren’t you?” J’onn sighed as he took a seat behind his big oaken desk.

Too eager to sit, Kara crossed her arms and planted her feet as she nodded, the weight of it heavy on her brow.

“We’ll have people watching him,” Alex promised. “He will have a monitor on his ankle and he has to appear daily to a court-appointed psychiatrist.”

“I haven’t told Lena yet. I wanted to make sure that it was happening. How did it happen? He’s a madman!”

“The court system is garbage. We’ve always known this.”

“But him? He’s deranged.”

“We’re doing the best we can, but we operate within the narrow confines of the government, Kara.”

She snapped her mouth shut and clenched her jaw, the niceties of the quick reunion already gone with thinking about before– about the last Luthor she’d confronted, who tried to kill her and her girlfriend.

“Is it definite that he’ll be released?”

“Tomorrow,” Alex offered solemnly.

“There’s nothing we can do, to keep him in prison?” she asked, worried and upset by the prospect of the crazed murderer walking free.

Alex shared a look with the Director, with their friend, and they tried to gauge how to handle it. It was an impossible situation, and they’d had numerous arguments with everyone they could think of to stall or delay or halt the release, all to no avail. And they couldn’t figure it out, but they had an idea that there was money changing hands somewhere. But Kara didn’t need to know that.

“He’s getting out, but he doesn’t know where you two went.”

“All that’ll take is a google search!” Kara yelped. “I just got her happy. I just got over the nightmares. I want… I want… I want to stay happy. We have a life.”

“You can keep it,” J’onn promised. “We will contain him. He certainly won’t be traveling for a while.”

“The city isn’t safe with a Luthor.”

“He’ll be stuck in Metropolis. And your cousin is still there,” Alex offered.

With a slump, Kara sat on the chair in front of J’onn’s desk. She sighed and held her head in her hands, her shoulders slumping as she looked up and rubbed her cheek. Nothing had changed, everything was the same in the DEO as it always had been, from the folders and stacks of papers on the Director’s desk to the way her sister carried herself through the halls, all power and knowledge and fearlessness. It just reminded Kara that it would never end.

“Lena’s going to lose it,” she sighed.

Above her, Alex exchanged a look with her mentor so that he nodded in the slightest movement and excused himself as she sat beside her sister, rubbing her shoulder.

“Tell her we’ve got it. Nothing is going to happen to you.”

“She’s so close to being over the Luthor curse. I don’t know what to do now,” Kara shook her head. “I can’t fix it.”

“You flew all the way up here because you love her, and you want to protect her, but I promise that we can handle things. Tell her that.”

“She trusts the DEO about as far as she could throw me, which isn’t far at all.”

Alex chuckled at the explanation, and rubbed her sister’s back.

“We did everything we could to stop it.”

“I’m just getting her back, Alex,” Kara shook her head, a deep, profound sadness in her eyes. “I’m afraid… I just… one more thing. One more thing happens, and I don’t know if I can have her back again.”

For the moment, Alex looked at her sister, the pillar of her life, the strength she never knew existed, and she saw actual fear there coupled with this unfathomable worry.

“You love her. And if I know one thing about Lena Luthor, it’s that she will come back to you, always.”

“I don’t know,” she shook her head, disagreeing.

“I do know though. Trust me.”

“I have to tell her.”

“Yeah. if she doesn’t know already.”

“I should go back. I’m sure the news is going to break any moment.”

“Do you want to go get lunch first?” Alex offered. “I know it burns your energy like crazy to travel that far. Let me feed you.”

“I should head back.”

Alex shared a smiled with her sister.

“Lex Luthor is not going to ruin the first time I’ve seen you in a year,” she argued. “Potstickers. On me.”

Despite the worry that remained in her muscles, Kara softened at the suggestion.

* * *

The penthouse with the open windows and breeze that ruffled open books was alive with the sounds that came in the late afternoon of someone returning home from work. The cat hopped down from the back of the couch, taking his time to stretch forward and backwards and forward again before approaching the front door as it unlocked.

Balancing a bag of groceries in one hand and adjusting the bag on her shoulder of work things, Lena nudged the door with an elbows and worked the key out of the stubborn lock before using a foot to shut it behind her as the cat moved to greet her calf.

“Hey handsome,” she cooed, hurrying to drop everything on the counter before it spilled.

With a huff, she finally unloaded her arms and pushed the hair away from her face, excited to finally have a free afternoon to beat Kara home and cook her something special. It was all she’d been looking forward to, and she was ready to make the birthday something spectacular.

The cat jumped onto the counter, surveying the goods before Lena rubbed his back and gave him a kiss, which he promptly shook away. Lena kicked off her shoes as she turned on some music and began to unload her bag, much to the cat’s annoyance.

“She never cleans up the counter,” Lena shook her head, complaining to her captively napping audience as she moved around the kitchen.

Kara’s coffee cup and the newspaper remained on the same spot it’d been when Lena left for work with a big kiss that hinted at what was to come later in the night. She loved her roommate. She loved her more than anything else, and yet she really wasn’t used to, still, living with the whirlwind of a person.

“Don’t look at me. She’s your favorite. And I know it’s because she sneaks you extra treats and she’s built like a living radiat–”

Everything halted as she saw the picture on the front page of the paper. The words came a few seconds later, taking their time in making sense.

For much too long, Lena stared at the newspaper before her legs stopped working and she fell into the stool.

“I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t see that,” Kara mumbled, standing in the doorway from the balcony.

“You saw this and didn’t say anything?”

Lena didn’t even look up, she just stared at her brother’s picture as he celebrated the court’s ruling that he was to be granted his parole. He didn’t look like someone who used to chase her around the yard of their country home for Easter. He didn’t look like someone she knew at all.

“I had to check on things first,” she tried. “I thought I could give you one more day before you had to know.”

“Is it true then?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we moved then. We won’t have to think about it at all.”

Her tone was defiant, as if she was trying to state facts, but merely used them to make herself feel like she had a plan for a situation that was impossible to actually plan for. There was no right way to handle it, but she reverted to business and facts.

“Lena, I know it’s–” Kara took a step forward.

“No, no, I don’t want to think about it. He can have whatever he wants. We have enough money,” Lena shook her head and pushed the paper away. “We don’t need anything back there. He can do whatever he wants. He’s no blood of mine.”

She sighed and let her shoulder’s drop of all the weight they’d been carrying. She didn’t really have a reason for anything anymore. Just like that, as always, her brother ruined another evening. It was a skill he’d developed.

Kara saw her chance, and she ambled her way around the kitchen and stood beside the girl she loved who sullenly sat on the stool and clenched her jaw. The times that she looked so childlike, so nervous, Kara fell in love. She felt her spine grow strong, and she was ready for war.

“Alex is watching him. They have an entire team ready, ankle monitors, mandatory observation,” she explained, earning a look.

“You went home?”

“Just to talk to Alex and J’onn. I had to see what was– Ooff,” Kara grunted, earning a little shove.

“You went home and didn’t tell me? How often do you do that?”

“This was the first time! Don’t take your anger out on me, Lee. I was following up to see if there was anything else we could do to prevent it.”

She searched Kara’s face and looked to find the truth.

“My brother is going to be released from jail. What about Clark?”

“I think he can take care of himself.”

“But what about–”

“Lena, it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” she sniffled, fighting against arms that wrapped around her until she couldn’t anymore and she murmured into her girlfriend’s shoulder all of her fears. “He’s my brother.”

“I know.”

“I told him I was done, but I just.. Everything my father did– what if Lex is different? Why can’t I quit caring about him?”

“Because you’re family.”

“We’re a family. He’s just… he’s just… he’s a plague.”

Kara snorted and kissed Lena’s hair.

“I know.”

“We’re not going back,” Lena insisted.

“I know,” Kara whispered, soothing. “But we can if you want.”

“He’s my responsibility. Those are the words I can’t shake. We’re each other’s responsibility. My father always told us that.”

“I get it.”

“We can’t go back,” she said again, this time more and less adamant, depending on the syllable. “We have a life here. I don’t want to lose it, or us, or you.”

“Well I’m not going anywhere, no matter what.”

“You know what I mean.”

“We don’t have to go back, but we can. I know how hard it is to run.”

“We’re not going back.”

Lena clenched her teeth as she slipped a look at her brother’s face on the newspaper’s front page. Deep down she knew that he would be up to something and that she would have to stop him. He was her responsibility.

But then Kara kissed her again and held her cheeks in her hand, smiling as she wiped away the faint trail of a tear or two. Pure warmth and sunshine beamed back at Lena, and for a moment, she convinced herself that she could believe in her responsibility to Kara more than anything else.

“I love you,” Lena offered.

“I love you too,” Kara grinned. “It’s up to you what we do. I didn’t follow you once, and I regret it every day.”

“Just once?”

“When I let you go and didn’t chase you down, I thought I lost all chance of being happy. I thought I lost you forever. I won’t do it again. We’re a packaged deal now. Here or there, it doesn’t matter,” Kara promised. “Evil brothers and giant corporations and Kryptonite– they’re pointless. You and me, we’re mythological.”

“Oh?” Lena smiled despite herself because her girlfriend was everything.

“You and me. The best team of all time.”

“I don’t want to go back,” she tried.

“It’s up to you.”

* * *

High up on the water tower, they sat together again, many years and battles and lives separating them from from the kids who snuck into the pool on campus after hours and who spent nights dreaming of a future. Lena sighed and rested her chin on her girlfriend’s shoulder before kissing there. She hid against everything, right there.

“Remember when I bought you this?”

Kara let out a little chuckle and kissed the top of Lena’s head.

“I do. I still can’t believe you did that.”

“Really? You can’t? Out of all the things I’ve ever done, that’s the one that just tips over the edge?”

“I suppose not.”

For the moment, Kara started to say something, but decided against it. The night of the battle, when Lena stood up against an army, that was enough– in all honesty, that was the thing Kara could never believe. It made sense that Lena would buy a sentimental water tower; she kept movie stubs and pictures and clippings in a shoebox under a ridiculously expensive bed. Of course Lena bought a water tower. The fact that she had the spine to stand up and demand to be shot, that was new.

“Tell me we had to come back,” Lena whispered.

“This was your choice, darling.”

“Tell me I made the right one. Tell me I’m not being an idiot. Tell me that we can leave, anytime.”

She paused and thought about it and Kara felt Lena grab her bicep a little tighter. No one else got this Lena, this nervous, unsure, questioning woman. She wasn’t less perfect, she wasn’t less strong or less determined, she was just… she was incredibly human.

“Do you remember when we went to the beach, on that day?” Kara furrowed and stared out toward the ocean in the distance, out past their old stomping grounds. “You asked me to run away with you and you said that if we didn’t that night, we might never escape?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever escape.”

“Yeah,” Lena nodded slowly. “I was afraid of that.”

“So we’ll just make the best of it, and make everything better. You and me.”

“Ever the optimist.”

“I mean it. You and me.”

“I know,” she smiled.

The two sat on the water tower, knowing full well that they would be stuck forever, and to a degree they always knew their fate. Somewhere in the distance, music played from a house and a car honked at a light.

“Kara, there’s something we have to do before we really go back.”

“What’s that?” Lena just smiled and kissed her.


	3. Chapter 3

Like thieves in the night, they snuck back to their place with no fanfare at all, no one waiting to welcome them, no food in the fridge, and no warning to a living soul in the immediate vicinity. Instead, under the cover of darkness and a private plane, with two or three decent-sized bags and the rest to follow, the pair left the relative safety of their water tower and made their way back to where it all ended again.

There was something innate about being in the penthouse. It felt like they’d never left, and yet it didn’t feel as if it were in the same lifetime. The entire city has this eerie sameness, but like looking at it through glasses, so that the blur of memories were now brought into focus and the little bit of unsureness about certain shapes were brought into a sharp focus.

The place remained empty, not for sale, but not in use. Lena chalked it up to always knowing they’d have to come back. She wasn’t sure why or how or when, but she knew that there was no real way they could stay away forever. And so she couldn’t exactly sell it, though she feigned interest in it a few times, always meaning to take up a realtor, but forgetting to do it the moment after she mentioned it.

So bags dropped on the floor of an empty living room around midnight. Albert was released from his carrier and he sniffed the floor and was left just as confused as when they arrived in Midvale the night before. Those were his smells beneath it all; those were his windows that held his views of an entire glittering world.

On a spare mattress in one of the guest rooms that remained, not needed in the move, they slept after not saying too much. There wasn’t much left to say, they realized. And while Kara slept, arm thrown protectively around Lena’s waist, Lena remained awake and confused by the home beneath the foreign.

For most of the night, she played with Kara’s fingers before the first tp of dawn made itself known. She kissed Kara’s cheek and pushed herself out of bed, falling immediately back into a similar routine, one that she thought she’d lost long ago, and yet her body took it up with no real prompting. It was part of her.

The house was empty and the city had this familiar tint to it, but what remained unchanged was the LCorp building. It was the same amount of steps from the front door to the elevator, but each one felt heavier than normal, like she was trudging through quick sand. It was the same ding when the doors closed. It was the same button, and it was the same blank feeling that came as the elevator hurled itself toward the top of the building.

It wasn’t really her office anymore. The one at the very top of the building was repurposed for the person who actually ran it for her. It was a much better use of space than an empty shrine waiting for her to come back. But it was all eery and familiar, and she hated each part of it, and she hated that she was back. Most importantly, she hated that she felt like a different person, and now she felt the past creeping into her bones.

“Ms. Luthor. Hello. Hi. Good morning,” the secretary greeted her after a few moments of moving around the halls unbothered.

Lena smiled to herself as she looked at her watch and realized how quickly word travelled. Somehow between her arrival and entrance to the elevator, a series of texts and emails and phone calls were made and received, leading to everyone’s day becoming absolutely anxiety-riddled.

“Could you let Ms. Arias know that I’d like to chat with her whenever she gets in,” Lena smiled. “No rush. I’ll just set up in a conference room.”

“Can I get you anything? I can have coffee brought–”

“I think I still know where everything is,” she shook her head. “Whenever Jess gets in, you can tell her where I am, and please tell Sam not to rush in to see me.”

“I will.”

“Thank you.”

She took a deep breath and looked around the reception area of her former floor, and Lena wasn’t sure why she oddly felt a small, small pang of longing, but she sure as hell did. The receptionist watched her anxiously, eager to send along all of their interaction.

“Should we have been expecting you, Ms. Luthor? I don’t remember it being on the books.”

“No, this was a surprise.”

“Oh.”

“A good surprise, I think,” she promised. “Just thought it was time to check in.”

“I’ll let everyone know.”

“Thank you.”

Lena let herself move toward the elevator, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. It was still much too early, but she knew that Kara would be waking soon and to an empty bed. She decided to think about that instead of her family name and the idea of coming back.

For better or worse, she was home.

* * *

Before she opened her eyes, Kara knew she was almost alone in bed. Gone was the weight that took up the left side, gone was the warm body that melded into her side before dawn. Instead, an annoyed cat chirped and adjusted as Kara rolled over. Instead, all that remained was just her, with half the covers kicked off, and a gnawing kind of worry at how familiar it all felt, and how their reprieve felt like nothing more than a dream.

From her back, Kara looked at the ceiling in the guest room from the mattress she’d never slept on before, and she sighed before twisting around her finger with her thumb.

“What am I supposed to do today?”

Unemployed and back where she died, Kara had no answer. She’d concerned herself so much with making sure that Lena was okay and functioning and not regressing, that Kara hadn’t really thought what would come next for her, further solidifying her idea that Lena Luthor was, in fact, a full time job in and of herself.

For much of their time abroad, Kara occupied herself with freelance work, and she was sure she could do that again. But something about being back, about falling into this etching of an old life, left her slightly disrupted and unsure. The last time she’d been in National City, she died. She once wore a cape and saved the world, and now she was no one. And that was okay, when they left and went to a new city. She could start over. And now she was back, and she was a ghost.

Mulling it over, Kara tossed herself out of bed and rummaged toward the kitchen in search of something to eat. When she didn’t find anything, she tossed on clothes and decided that she had a fancy thick matte black credit card and an empty house. She could eat and she could furnish their home again before Lena decided on more minimalism and another uncomfortable couch that got accidentally, but very purposefully broken after just a few weeks.

Hip deep in a suitcase, Kara lurched upward with two different shoes as her front door was tossed open.

“I have to hear from Sam that you’re back in town?” Alex yelled, her voice more stern than ever before.

“Hey,” Kara smiled sheepishly. “I was just about to see if you wanted to go get breakfast. I’m starving.”

“What the hell, Kara!”

Hands on hips, the alien very much wanted to tell her sister that she looked like Eliza, but that didn’t seem like a good way to start what seemed like a fight. Kara missed her sister so terribly, that event his face was welcomed. She’d accept her faux anger because they were in the same place.

“I was going to call today, obviously,” she shrugged. “We just got in kind of late, and it’s been a whirlwind–”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“Lena had to make sure Lex didn’t get any control of the company, and make sure he doesn’t do anything. She couldn’t– I told her we didn’t have to, that we could leave it.”

“Not really her style, is it?”

“I don’t think she’s ever left anything alone since I’ve met her,” Kara agreed with a somewhat tired grin. “Talk about moral compass. She puts Supergirl to shame.”

“Is she coming back, too?”

For a moment, Kara paused and furrowed her brow. It was a question she knew the answer to, but one that she was afraid to utter aloud. So she looked at her sister and watched her features soften slightly so that she looked even more like their mother in a distinctly Danver’s way.

“The world doesn’t need Supergirl when they have Lena Luthor,” Kara decided.

“You could still work at the DEO you know. With me.”

“I’m retired.”

“I give you two weeks.”

Smug now, Alex finally gave in and hugged her sister tightly, earning a squeeze just south of comfortable. But she didn’t mind and she didn’t say anything. Things were weird and the world was changing, and yet, this felt like a moment of normal they both needed.

“So…” Kara whispered, still hugging her sister. “Breakfast?”

* * *

“Can we add presentations to the middle of next week? I want current projects, timetables, and future goals from departments and subsidiaries over the next month. Start local, and then spread. I might want to visit different facilities.”

“We haven’t done proposals in five years,” Sam furrowed and looked at the woman sitting catty-corner to her at the large boardroom table.

“We’re a little overdue then, aren’t we?” Lena smiled.

Taken slightly aback, Sam swallowed and tried to hide her thoughts while jotting something in the notepad in front of her. Between them in their corner, a good third of the table filled itself with open files and stacks of papers. Lena pushed the glasses from her face to atop her head and leaned back slightly in her chair, swiveling toward the side.

“I want to see where we’re at. I won’t let any part of this company be used for any nefarious plots. If that means more observing, then it does. I trust you, but I can’t muster enough trust for anyone else.”

“I get it, it’s just…” Sam sighed. “You’ve been gone, a long time. You told me you were taking a step back. A few dozen steps back, you told me.”

“And you are doing a spectacular job. I don’t want to take over again.”

“But you can’t help yourself.”

“You sound like my –”

“Ms. Luthor?” the phone buzzed from the secretary. “You have a visitor at reception, should I have them sent in?”

“Yes, Ms. Teschmacher. Thank you.”

The two powerful women stared at each other for a moment. It was Lena who toyed with her pen first, moving it between her fingers.

“I don’t want to disrupt what you’re doing,” Lena promised after a brief pause. “Think of me as an auditor.”

“I woke up this morning, and suddenly you’re back. It’s hard to adjust.”

“I know,” she nodded. “But things came up, and I won’t hide from my brother. And I won’t let him come close to what I’ve built.”

“Nothing is going to happen. He can’t want to try to get involved. He’s a felon.”

“You can’t put anything past him.”

“You don’t think you’re being a little overkill?”

“Maybe,” Lena shrugged. “But I can promise you that I won’t be caught any steps behind. The Luthors are chess players. Six moves ahead at all times. If anything, I’m behind.”

“Are you staying?”

Sam watched Lena as her eyes moved to the door where Kara sheepishly entered, knocking softly and sneaking in carefully, still used to being the plus one of a CEO. She watched as eyes lit up and Lena seemed to relax for a moment, distracted entirely by another human in the room.

“For now,” Lena nodded, not looking away. “We weren’t expecting you, darling.”

“I was in the neighborhood. Wanted to see how the first day back was going,” Kara hugged Sam, holding it and accepting the squeeze. “She’s not being too much of a pain, is she?”

“Just the usual amount,” Sam promised with a grin.

As easy as that, it wasn’t a business meeting any longer, and everyone in the room was grateful for it. Sam gripped the back of the chair as she watched Lena kiss Kara quickly and they had a conversation with eyes alone.

“I was hoping I could interest you in lunch,” Kara offered. “Unless you two have plans already. I already got an earful from Alex, so we went to breakfast. Do you want to yell at us, too?”

“I already yelled at her earlier,” Sam promised. “You two are exhausting, I hope you know.”

“We’re well aware,” Lena smirked. “Join us for lunch?”

“I should check in with my team and see how the day is going since I didn’t expect to be in a five hour meeting all morning.”

“They can wait another hour.”

“Ruby has a soccer game tonight that I have to make, or I would,” Sam nodded as she picked up her portfolio.

Lena gave Kara a look and earned on in return before clearing her throat.

“There’s something I want to talk about with you. That we,” she corrected. “We’d like to talk to you about something.”

It was less sure, and made Same slow her movements until she looked back at her friends. And though she’d been slightly disoriented and overwhelmed with having work-Lena back, there was this relief she felt to have her friend back as well.

“I really have to finish up. Is it something bad, or can it wait?”

“It can wait,” Lena promised quickly. Kara nudged her slightly and earned a furrow and look. “It’ll keep. I don’t want you to miss the game. Let me know if there’s anything I can get done for you.”

“You should come to the game,” Sam offered. “Ruby would love to see her favorite aunts.”

“We’ll be there,” Kara promised. “We’ll bring you back lunch.”

“I guess it will be nice having you back after all,” she teased.

“You’re sure I can steal her?” the former hero checked again, polite as ever.

“Please steal her.”

“Very funny,” Lena rolled her eyes and nudged the tall, sturdy girl beside her. “I am starving though.”

“Good.”

Lena linked her arm with Kara’s and walked around the table as Sam surveyed the remnants of the table and their files. The hours flew by, and it felt as if she was deeper under a pile of work than before she started, and just as unsure how to get out.

“You can leave them. I’ll work out of here today,” Lena interrupted, pausing at the door. “I’ll have Ms. Teschmacher find me an office somewhere.”

“You don’t want yours?”

“I don’t have one here,” she reassured her. “And I’m not about to take the CEO’s.”

Sam smiled slightly and shook her head.

“Have a good lunch.”

* * *

The penthouse was slightly more lived in than when she left in the morning, but Lena expected that with the update she’d been given at lunch. Of course, she hadn’t expected as much to be done, or for her to like it.

Understated and still not much more than minimalist, the living room had a couch and a television and empty bookshelves. A rug remained rolled up in a corner while groceries covered the kitchen counter, waiting to be put away in a rightful spot.

The cat didn’t even move from his new perch on the back of the couch when Lena kicked off her heels and tossed her bag on the still-wrapped chair blocking a closet door. All was quiet, and she realized Kara hadn’t made it back from friendly drinks with her old co-workers. Fresh from the soccer game and her favorite soccer player who squealed with excitement and ran off the pitch as the game started to give her a hug, Lena welcomed the time to steal away to the shower and hog its hot water and luxury for herself.

She needed to wash away the feeling of falling back into her old skin, and so she scrubbed until she forgot to think about LCorp for a few minutes. She scrubbed and soaked until she felt like she’d made the right decision.

In reality, she stood there, under the water, for a lot longer than anyone should have.

But by the time Kara made it home, Lena was cleaner than clean, and lounging on the new couch with an old book.

“Do you like what I’ve done with the place?” Kara asked with a grin.

“It’s squatter-chic, and I approve,” Lena returned, turning the page in her book.

“The rest comes on Thursday. You’re going to be impressed, I think.”

“I already am. This couch is fantastic.”

“I told you I could do it better than you,” she taunted before leaning down and kissing Lena’s forehead.

Kara stooped down and rested her chin on the edge of the couch and her cheek against Lena’s slightly wet hair, hugging her head and letting out a sigh.

“Did you tell them?” Lena asked as she flipped another page.

“No,” Kara sighed, exasperated and disappointed.

“Kara,” she complained. “What happened?”

“We just got to chatting, and I got nervous, and I didn’t know how to tell them.”

“Shame on you.”

Lena folded a page and closed her book before shifting to meet Kara’s eyes. She earned a face hiding in the pillow as best it could and smiled slightly to herself.

“Did you tell Sam?” Kara finally encountered.

“It didn’t feel like the right time,” she shrank.

“Ha! I knew you couldn’t do it either.”

“You didn’t tell Alex! You started it!”

“How do I tell my sister I got married without her knowing because no one was invited? Clark is going to lose his mind!”

“Don’t forget Eliza.”

“Oh Rao, and her too!”

“They’re all going to kill us.”

Defeated again, Kara leaned more over her wife, flopping like dead weight under the realization that she was incapable of telling the people closest to her the happiest news of her life.

“Maybe we should have waited,” Kara mumbled. “Just gotten engaged and put on the big wedding for everyone.”

“We didn’t want that. Or at least you agreed that you didn’t,” Lena reminded her, finally reaching up to hold onto the forearm across her chest.

“Not for us, for them. We just signed some papers and I feel like we missed something.”

“You didn’t have to marry me.”

The voice was small. Too small.

“Not that. I like that part,” Kara chided her. “I’ve wanted to marry you since I was sixteen. I just mean, telling everyone should be easier. We’re thinking about it too hard.”

“Just tell them I made you.”

“You did make me.”

“Exactly.”

Kara came up for air and smiled before kissing her wife’s cheek again and hugging he a little tighter from the awkward angle of the couch. It didn’t matter. Lena needed it, and Kara was more than willing to agree. She would have married Lena years ago, but she knew it had to be on her schedule, or on her timeline.

It didn’t surprise her that Lena wanted to get married before coming back. It probably should have, but somehow Lena just made perfect sense. Of course she was afraid of losing everything. Naturally, she was thoughtful about what she wanted for their future. The dotted line was always there for Lena’s thoughts, it was just sometimes hard to follow and find if you didn’t speak the language.

“Have you decided to change the name to DCorp yet?” Kara teased. “Or Danvers Co?”

“Shut up,” Lena groaned and chuckled.

“DLCorp? You could always go back for the hyphen if you’d like.”

“Ugh. Never.”

“Then the sign out front is a lie, Mrs. Danvers.”

“That sign is never changing, ever again,” Lena vowed.

“Fine. But I’m just saying, that might be the easiest way to tell everyone.”

“Shut up.”


	4. Chapter 4

From the elevator, the guests could hear how busy the penthouse grew with every ding and opening of the doors. Every light was on, and every door was opened leading out onto the balconies and patios. Albert slept uneasily on a pile of coats on the guest bed, and no one knew as they were distracted with re-welcoming the returned lovebirds. The murmur of friends and family, mixed with the music and the evening and the summer breeze that whispered in from the balcony.

The dining room table was full– glasses of mixed levels, empty and full bottles of wine, lots of amazing food. The faces around it all laughed and talked over and across of each other, while the evening grew long and deep into the night, unnoticed by anyone at all.

While it was once very empty, despite Kara’s best attempts, the penthouse warmed with its new furniture and nicknacks. After just a month back, it all felt still new and familiar at the same time. The city was the same, the work was the same, and yet everything was skewed slightly, and they were different people.

As everyone finally sat down, as Kara finally finished fluttering around the table, and Lena finished topping off glasses and chatting with Eliza about some shared research methods, as Jss mocks James for his cover story, and earns a laugh from Kat who yells down the table for Lucy to recall a time in Budapest, and so on and so forth, the couple finally found themselves sitting close together at dinner.

Kara winked at Lena between a smile and a talk with her sister. Lena smiled at all of it and decided that she needed more nights like that.

“Thank you everyone, for coming to this dinner, and I guess a welcome back party,” Kara stood from her chair after earning a slight nudge from Lena.

The voices chattered their approval, clapping their hands and making the host blush slightly.

“But we didn’t invite you here just as a re-house warming.”

“Are you leaving again?” Alex interrupted.

“Adopting?” Eliza smiled over her glass of wine.

“Engaged?” Nia squealed.

“Close. Um,” Kara gulped and looked at Lena. “We wanted everyone here to tell them– well… we had to explain– about how… see–”

“What Kara is trying to say,” Lena stood and rubbed Kara’s shoulder. “Is that before we came back, I asked Kara to marry me.”

“I knew it!” James shook his head as he wagged his finger, leaning forward at the table. “I told you Lucy.”

“And we got married,” she continued, the shock registering quite quickly. “A very quick afternoon trip to the courthouse, and a honeymoon planned for the summer.”

The quiet was a noticeable difference from the hubbub of the party. Kara gulped again and sipped her wine more eagerly. She felt Lena grip her shoulder and then hug her bicep tight as she could. It was an anchor when Kara very badly wanted to float away and disappear.

At one end of the table, Eliza looked to J’onn for confirmation, earning a slight nod as he smiled into his glass. In the quiet, the mother looked at both of the girls, the same ones she watched grow up together and face some of the most difficult things anyone could imagine– and she saw how right it seemed.

With a small movement, the matriarch pushed out her chair and made her way around toward the center of the table, where she paused near the couple.

“I am so happy for you, both,” Eliza smiled, eyes growing glasses. She hugged Lena and Kara to her.

The table lashed out with its energy, disbelief and joy raged together in smiles and hugs and jokes and cheers. Down the line, the gobsmacked members of the makeshift family shared in on the celebration because they were too surprised to do much else.

“Welcome to the family,” Eliza smiled as she held Lena’s cheeks. She hugged her tightly and Lena clung to the motherly figure as tightly as she could, burying her nose there.

Among the hugs and all, the mother swallowed Lena in an embrace and kissed her cheek before whispering how much she loved her and wanted her in her family. Lena cried, she couldn’t help it and she hated how happy it made her.

“Does this mean no wedding?” Alex furrowed. “I thought you would want the whole wedding experience.”

“Um,” Kara squinted slightly and looked to her wife. “I think we’re okay without it. It was more important that we just committed, to be a team.”

“But the fancy dress, and the reception, and your family?” Maggie offered, swooning at the thought of her own as she looked at the ring Lena put on.

“We didn’t think you all would mind missing a rather large swaray,” Lena shrugged.

“It’s just something to think about.”

Kara offered a smile and wrapped her arm around her wife’s waist.

“A nice dress would be fun,” she shrugged.

* * *

When she was seventeen years old, Lena Luthor fell in love with two things at the exact same time. One, was her beautiful, kind, funny best friend, who had hair like wheat and eyes like the ocean, who ate all of the snacks she set out and still wanted more, who liked to sit and soak up the sun until her skin was burnt.

The second, of course, was the complex system of nerves that connected the bran to the rest of the body. During an anatomy class geared toward mechanical studies, Lena fell absolutely head over heels for the way the body worked and how it could heal and adapt, and more important, how tiny impulses that fired at alarming speeds operated the simplest of movements at a near constant pace. It was a computer, and she was obsessed with computers.

It became her life’s mission to love and understand each of her passions, one she took up very eagerly.

“We had a deal, Sam,” Lena shook her head as she dug into the open guts of a computer-esque system that took up a rather large desk in the corner of the building.

“We did, and you were supposed to be living a stress-free life in South America, but we’re compromising.”

Big brown eyes waited anxiously, surveying the working hands as she leaned against the desk. She was reluctant to admit her job was easier with Lena back. The mega-corporation was a multi-headed beast that required many skilled wranglers, and Lena wasn’t apt to hire many of them, because that would involve trust.

But she had a weakness for the ones she did.

“I’m supposed to be planning my honeymoon, just so you know.”

Lena didn’t look up from her work as she spoke, but rather surveyed after soldering.

“It’s a quick trip, and then you can get back to being ridiculously adorable with Kara. I can’t make it there and to the conference in Paris, where I was summoned.”

“I’d rather answer to the EU assembly than go to Metropolis.”

“And I’d rather go speak at the university, but they settled for you, and it’s commencement. Think of all the impressionable kids that need to hear your words.”

Flattery wasn’t as effective as it was on most, but Sam knew it got her somewhere with her boss. She also knew that Lena was fighting it for reasons other than wanting to stay home all of a sudden.

“The deal was, I do busy work and help with the management side of my company, in exchange for two uninterrupted days of research,” she reminded her appointed president of the company that bore her name. “You do your thing, and I get to do mine. I keep strict hours. I’m learning to cook.”

“Kara can order out for a night,” Sam reminded her. “She can take Ruby for pizza. Then both of them are fed, and hopefully one will keep the other out of trouble.”

“That’s too much responsibility for Ruby.”

“Fly in for the evening, do your speech, shake some hands. The press will be fantastic, and after your marriage news broke, we kind of need something else in the headlines.”

“First, Eliza guilts me, and then Maggie. I didn’t expect you to also be in on this conspiracy to make me have a wedding.”

“No one is making you, I think we just would have liked to have been there,” she shrugged. “And the press loves a good story.”

“There’s no story,” Lena grumbled, exasperated and annoyed. “She’s not some stranger I picked up on the street.”

“A quickie marriage, a swift and quiet return after fleeing in the night– it’s a very particular story.”

“I’m going to go on this trip, just to get away from all of you.”

“You’ll go then?” Sam didn’t wait. She hugged her friend and earned a grimace before melting. Lena Luthor wasn’t the hardest person to convince when she felt something. “Think of it as a pre-honeymoon,” Sam sang as she wiggled her eyebrows and made her way back towards her own office.

* * *

The penthouse was alive as Kara trudged her way home, slightly sloppy from the sudden shower that popped up on her commute home from a long day of hunting down a lead to a very old story she hoped to turn into a rather long article. She expected a few hours of quiet. Thursdays were Lena’s night at the lab, but after her day, Kara was excited to see her wife.

She hadn’t necessarily gotten used to that word– wife. Kara wrestled with her coat as she tugged the sticky fabric from her arms and fiddled with the ring on her finger. Lena Luthor was her wife. They were forever. The seventeen year old in her was still kind of surprised by it.

Two months back, and they were a married couple that lived in the same city that was nearly torn apart because of them, and that was challenging. Maybe Lena planned n the joys of the first year of marriage as the thing that helped them get over the hump.

“Son of a –”

The pans rattled in the kitchen, blurring out the inevitable swearing.

“How hard is it to make a damn lasagna?” Lena complained as she stared at the mess in the pan.

The rest of the counter was covered in food and bowls, and the smell was a little different, not exactly what Eliza or even Alex could mix up.

“Hey, honey,” Kara muttered as a particularly despondent Lena furrowed at her mess. “I didn’t expect you home… and cooking?”

“I really wanted some comfort food, and Eliza’s lasagna is my favorite, but I can’t get it right,” she pouted, swirling the goopy mess in the pan. “And Sam is making me go to Metropolis.”

“Hm, okay interesting.”

The former hero slowly circled, avoiding her wife only to reach around and fill up two glasses of wine from the half empty bottle on the counter. Sometimes there was no really understanding Lena and her moods, there was simply surviving them.

“Did you see that article?” Lena asked, taking out more things to chop and cook.

“Mhm.”

“Prison paroles employment and education plan.”

“Mmm,” Kara nodded into her glass of wine as she sipped and watched.

“He’s an ass. I should have burned that house down in Metropolis. I should have emptied his accounts. All of them.”

“Yeah.”

“And I have to go to Metropolis. I didn’t even want to come back to National City.”

The pan clanged into the sink as Lena gave up her struggle and tossed it aside, distraught at her failure and everything else.

She was new to the marriage thing, but Kara knew better than to point out the fact that her wife wanted to come back– felt the need to come back, were the exact words. She definitely wasn’t going to point that out though. She definitely wasn’t going to take the brunt of the pent up anger that was evident toward the lasagna.

“Hey, look, I poured you more wine,” Kara offered, kissing her wife’s cheek and handing over the new cup.

“I have to go to Metropolis, and I have to learn how to make lasagna.”

“Sit, yeah, sit down and drink,” she tutted.

“Why did you make me come back?”

“Because I am a terrible person, and I am only happy when you’re miserable,” Kara explained as she started to dig through the cabinet.

“Don’t say that, you’re spectacular,” Lena disagreed eagerly. “You’re my wife. You can’t say things like that.”

“Before I could though?”

“Well no.”

On the space she cleared, Kara began her work as best she could, prepared to provide sustenance to her worried wife. Sometimes, she was learning, making a peanut butter sandwich after a long day and drinking a very expensive bottle of wine was all that being married meant.

“I’ll go with you, if you want,” Kara offered as she cut the sandwich in half.

“It’s just for a night.”

“Still. I like a night away. A fancy hotel with the good soaps and all that privacy.”

With a smile, Kara handed over half of her sandwich to her wife.

“Are you…. Do you want to spend money?”

“Shut up.”

Lena smiled into her glass while she picked at the sandwich. She didn’t worry about the mess and she didn’t think too hard about much else than a trip with Kara. That was how she survived most of the time.

“We came back here as a team,” Kara explained, her blush moving to her ears as she spoke with conviction. “I’d go anywhere with you. You don’t have to do it alone.”

“Thank you.”

“Good. I’ll thank Sam for giving us a vacation,” she smiled before taking a big bite.

“I have to work.”

“Right, yes, but hotel sex.”

“Today was a really shitty day before you came home,” Lena sighed contentedly as she shared the rest of her sandwich after her wife inhaled her own part. “And you’re slightly damp still.”

“The hazards of marrying a Luthor– perpetually damp.”


End file.
